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Industry & Manufacturing

The Museum's collections document centuries of remarkable changes in products, manufacturing processes, and the role of industry in American life. In the bargain, they preserve artifacts of great ingenuity, intricacy, and sometimes beauty.

The carding and spinning machinery built by Samuel Slater about 1790 helped establish the New England textile industry. Nylon-manufacturing machinery in the collections helped remake the same industry more than a century later. Machine tools from the 1850s are joined by a machine that produces computer chips. Thousands of patent models document the creativity of American innovators over more than 200 years.

The collections reach far beyond tools and machines. Some 460 episodes of the television series Industry on Parade celebrate American industry in the 1950s. Numerous photographic collections are a reminder of the scale and even the glamour of American industry.

This model demonstrates the invention of a mechanical crawling doll. It accompanied the patent submission of George Pemberton Clarke, who received U.S. patent No. 118,435 on 29 August 1871 for his “Natural Creeping Baby Doll.” The original patent office tag is still attached with red tape. Clarke’s patent was an improvement on the crawling baby doll patent of his associate Robert J. Clay (No. 112,550 granted 14 March 1871).

The doll’s head, two arms and two legs are made of painted plaster. The arms and legs are hinged to a brass clockwork body that actuates the arms and legs in imitation of crawling, but the doll moves forward by rolling along on two toothed wheels. A flat piece of wood is attached to top of the movement.

A commercial version of the doll is also in the collection. See also Cat. 2011.0204.01

This mechanical toy is part of a fascinating continuum of figures built to imitate human life. This long Western tradition stretches from ancient Greece through the mechanical automatons of the Enlightenment, through wind-up toys to contemporary robots and other machines with artificial intelligence.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a flatbed cylinder printing press which was granted patent number 108785. The patent details methods of controlling the motion of the type bed. The model is broken.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a flatbed printing press; the invention was granted patent number 173295. The patent describes improvements to the movement of the bed, the sheet fly, and the inking table of cylinder presses.

George Selden's dubious claim that he invented the automobile cast a shadow on the early auto manufacturing industry. His claim rested on a patent application for a "road-engine" that he had filed in 1879. A lawyer schooled in science, Selden was intrigued by the challenge of devising an engine light enough to propel a road vehicle. He designed a small, improved version of George Brayton's compression engine of 1872 and filed a patent application for "a liquid-hydrocarbon engine of the compression type" combined with broadly defined chassis components. Selden deliberately delayed issuance of the patent until 1895, when automobiles were attracting more attention. Soon a patent-pooling association of auto manufacturing companies demanded and received royalties from other manufacturers for the right to produce Selden's "invention." Henry Ford, then just entering the automobile industry, became locked in a highly-publicized legal battle with the Selden interests when his application for a license was turned down in 1903. Ford blasted monopolistic control and exploitation by the "automobile trust" and forever fixed his image as an independent businessman fighting a corporate Goliath for the good of all. Ford's victory in court raised his standing in the automotive industry and made him one of the best known businessmen in America. In 1911 the Selden patent was limited to vehicles with Brayton-type engines as modified by Selden, and his influence quickly faded.

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with its application for Patent no. 217758, issued to James M. Whiting, of Providence, Rhode Island, July 22, 1879.

This is an example of combined air and steam engines, many designs of which have been proposed and built. In this engine the use of steam is intended to reduce the bulk of the heated air required to operate an engine of a given capacity and consequently reduce the size of the engine.

The model shows a vertical fire-tube steam boiler of ordinary construction above the tubes of which is placed a hollow drum that is heated by the hot gases from the boiler. There is also a small steam pump and a vertical high-speed steam engine of the slide-valve type. Steam from the boiler is mixed with the heated air in the upper drum, and the mixture of heated air and steam is led directly to the engine and expanded. The air pump supplies air to the heated drum.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with the application for the patent issued to Andrew J. Peavey of Boston, Massachusetts, August 16, 1870, no. 106400.

The model represents a stationary cylinder filled with oil within which turns a paddle wheel driven by the engine at a speed dependent upon the velocity of the engine. Also within the stationary cylinder and surrounding the paddle wheel is a hollow cylinder, which is hung loosely upon the shaft of the paddle wheel and is free to revolve independently of it. This cylinder has a series of blades or abutments projecting from the inner side of its rim, so that as the paddle wheel causes the oil to revolve in the cylinder the moving oil will come into contact with the abutments and tend to turn the loose cylinder. Attached to the loose cylinder is a pinion that meshes with a toothed sector, which, in turn, is connected with the counterweight and so tends to oppose the turning of that cylinder. As the height to which the counterweight will be raised is a function of the velocity of the engine, this velocity can be governed by properly connecting the counterweight to the cut-off or throttle valve.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with the application for the patent issued to Henry R. Worthington, of New York, New York, June 20, 1871, no. 116131.

The model is a relief panel showing a section through the two steam cylinders of a duplex pump arranged to use steam at boiler pressure in one steam cylinder of small diameter, expand the exhaust steam in a receiver of much larger volume than the small cylinder, and use the steam at low pressure in a second cylinder of larger diameter. This arrangement was devised to permit the use of steam expansively in a duplex pump without the use of two compound cylinders, as was formerly the method.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with the application for the patent issued to John C. King, of New York, New York, September 20, 1870, no. 107504.

The model represents a direct-connected steam pump provided with rotary oscillating valves on the steam and water cylinders operated by an arm on the piston rod and a swinging lever. The peculiar feature of the design is the use of a sharp-edged spring-actuated slide, which acts upon a roller on the swinging lever to rapidly change the valve position as the pistons near the end of their strokes. During the first part of the stroke the roller on the swinging lever acts upon one side of the slide and forces it up against a coil spring. Toward the end of the stroke the roller passes under the sharp edge of the slide and the force of the spring causes the slide to push the roller and swinging lever rapidly in the direction in which it is traveling.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with the application for the patent issued to Hiram S. Maxim, of New York, New York, December 22, 1874, no. 158105.

This model represents a steam engine, pump, and gas-fired boiler, equipped with automatic valves for maintaining the proper level of water in the boiler and for holding a steady pressure in the boiler by starting or stopping the burner. The combination is a steam-pumping unit intended to function automatically without the services of an attendant.

The engine is supported upon the boiler and consists of a rectangular bed, which serves as the pump suction chamber, upon which is the vertical pump cylinder and the pedestal that supports the flywheel and crankshaft journals and the oscillating steam cylinder. Within the base of the pedestal is a feed-water heater through which the exhaust from the engine passes. A float-operated, weighted, pin valve admits water to the boiler from the discharge pipe of the pump when the level in the boiler falls. The boiler is a cylindrical shell type with combustion chamber formed by water legs in the shape of a truncated cone. A ring burner for gas or kerosene is located in a cylindrical firepot within the combustion chamber. The fuel valve to the burner is held open by a spring and is closed by the pressure within the boiler exerted upon a diaphragm and lever. A hole through the valve permits a small pilot flame to burn at all times.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with the application for the patent issued to Adam S. Cameron, of New York, New York, November 10, 1874, no. 156769.

This invention relates to a design of pump valves so controlled by spindles and guides that the necessity of central bearings in the valve seat is avoided, leaving a clear circular opening for the passage of the fluid being pumped.

The model represents a valve chest of a pump cylinder equipped with four valves arranged in pairs, in which one valve is located above the other. In each pair the valve stem of the upper valve projects upward into a hollow plug in the top of the valve chest and downward into a socket in the lower valve. The socket of the lower valve extends downward into a hollow plug or guide in the bottom of the valve chest. Both valves are spring closed and the lower valve is free to move independently of the upper valve.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.